


My Empire of Dirt

by escritoireazul



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Self Harm, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-10
Updated: 2008-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-14 12:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I hurt myself today / To see if I still feel / I focus all the pain / The only thing that’s real ("Hurt", Johnny Cash cover)</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Empire of Dirt

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: AU for end of season seven  
> Author's note: I started writing this early in season seven, but was unfortunately too busy with graduation to finish it. I thought I'd posted it already, but couldn't find it here.

The vampire exploded from the fresh grave, showering dirt and flowers, placed so faithfully to promise peace and stillness after death, every which way. The moving corpse was covered in what looked like a second best suit, now wrinkled and streaked with bits of earthworm and dust. It stumbled forward, arms outstretched, searching for the source of the blood scent riding on the air.

The Slayer ducked beneath the clumsy blows, and drove her knee into its stomach, forcing it to exhale air it didn’t need to breathe; already the stench of decay and death had set in, and she made a face.

“How about a mint?” she quipped, sidestepping its next lumbering attack. It swung around faster than she expected, already learning to use its new strength and speed, and one fist clipped her shoulder, sending her staggering back.

She shook out her arm, transferred the stake from her right hand to her left, and lunged back in, intent on the kill. A booted foot caught its chin, tossing it backward; that same leg swept around, knocking its feet out from under it, and sending it crashing to the ground.

Before it could rise, she slammed the stake down, the blow backed by so much force that the stake ended up embedded in the earth as its skin crumpled, revealing skeleton, then dust, and then nothing.

“Another outfit ruined in the line of duty,” she said, sighed, and stood, trying to wipe the remnants of vampire filth from the legs of her new silk pants. They weren’t the best pair for patrolling, but she’d been called away from a night out, and hadn’t had time to change.

Suddenly fingers wrapped around her throat, squeezing off her air. She jerked her head back, trying to strike whatever held her, but she could find nothing to hit. A blow caught her from the side, cracking her elbow and making her stake fall from suddenly numb fingers. She was lifted from the ground and shoved forward, her face pressed against a cold stone slab.

Fire lanced along the side of her neck as fangs scraped it, tearing strips of her flesh in passing. She tried to scream, tried to suck in enough air to whimper, even, but the hand only tightened, and she felt the mouth descend and start to suck.

Buffy jerked away, strangling. Her hands convulsed, and she realized that she gripped her own throat, her fingers tearing at her skin. It took a conscious effort to relax, but when she managed to do so, oxygen flooded her mouth, and she gulped it in.

When the panic of suffocation had passed, she realized she’d fallen asleep in her chair again, where it sat in front of a tiny window, the only source of natural light in her cramped apartment. The late afternoon sun had warmed her sufficiently for her to drift off, forgetting herself for a few precious hours.

The sun was gone now, and she shivered, tucking a black afghan more firmly across her lifeless legs. She could feel the softness of her flesh beneath the blanket, the atrophied muscles, the weakness that kept her bound.

She grunted quietly as she placed her palms on the wheels on either side of her chair, and pressed herself forward until she could reach the extra long cord to draw the curtain shut. Once night had been blocked out, and with it the trickle of light from the few streetlights that lit the street that ran parallel to her building, the room was dim, the only source of light falling into the room from the far corner, where Xander kept his personal belongings.

Not that he had much left. Buffy wheeled herself forward, slipping around the room almost as quietly as she had crept through graveyards during her nightly patrols. Neither of them had been able to save many physical objects as they’d fled Sunnydale, nor had they wanted to.

She hesitated at the door to his small room, not surprised to see that he had fallen asleep face down on his desk. Building designs were spread around him, along with lists of building material costs and estimates. He was good at the construction, good enough to be foreman of the team he now worked for, after only a few short months, but he was even better at the architectural design, creating buildings that defied common sense and aesthetics, but ended up beautiful and functional—at least on paper. As far as she knew, not a single design had left the apartment.

She moved on into the kitchen, the doorway just wide enough to let her chair through without scraping her knuckles on the doorframe. Her stomach tightened and rejected the idea of food, as it had more often than not since that last battle, but she needed a drink. She always needed a drink.

The alcohol was kept on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, just within her reach. She twisted the top off and took a long drink, not bothering with such niceties as glasses. Xander tried to leave them down at her level, but sometimes he forgot, and she didn’t want to wake him. Didn’t want the company, in which they would both dance around the truth, and avoid saying anything real.

Her arms ached, in part from having to propel herself around using only the muscles in them, but also because she’d had matches out again, before falling asleep. Burn marks, partially healed, ran the length of both her arms, on the inside, where they were easily covered. He knew nothing about her private activities, instead wanting to believe that she could keep herself entertained throughout the day. It was easier than asking how she felt, easier than editing each sentence, each thought for undesirable content.

She pressed one finger to a nasty burn on her wrist, then pushed the sleeve of her shirt out of the way, and tipped the bottle until the alcohol spilled over her skin. The pain lanced through her, bringing bright flashes of light behind closed eyelids, but it wasn’t enough, it faded to quickly, like every other thing she felt. 

Like every person she loved.

Each match was saved carefully, darkened tips lined up side by side in a small, wooden box. They were wasted, useless, trapped; she stared at them at night, when her inner urges became too strong to ignore, the need to patrol, to hunt, to feel her blows land, to feel power in her blood.

One match for the memory of Dawn’s hair spilling down her arm as her sister rested her head against Buffy’s shoulder, leaning in, taking her strength. One match for the vision of Giles, his glasses in his hands, blood dripping down his face. One match for Willow, eyes black, hair gone, consumed by her own magic.

One match for Spike, two matches for Spike, ten, a hundred, for the soul burning as he leapt, putting himself between her and death, between her and pain—between her and freedom from this mortality.

The memory of the final fight, not in Technicolor and surround sound and three-d and touch, like her dreams, but there, lifeless and large in front of her eyes, under her eyelids even when she closed them.

She opened her eyes and she drank.

~*~

Buffy maneuvered the chair against the rusted metal rail that protected walkers from the rush of the Mississippi far below. The sun set across the river, falling toward home, falling toward the only life she’d ever known, the only truth she’d ever been able to understand. 

Her hair was loose about her shoulders, still thin, but glistening as it hadn’t since the final showdown with the First Evil. The setting sun warmed her, and she discarded the thick afghan covering her legs. It slumped to the sidewalk, heavy and useless now that her body gave it no shape.

She leaned forward, and placed her hands on the top rail. Rust flaked off and coated her fingers, but the metal still held the heat from midday. She pressed down and it held the slight weight she put on it, and then more.

As she moved, the photograph in her pocket crinkled; for once she didn’t care that it was getting crumpled up. It had served its due, and it was time for it to have a rest. She pressed down harder, lifted herself from her seat. With almost every pound of her weight held by her hands, as little as that weight was, her feet found the ground. 

She stood upright, the muscles in her arms corded, straining at the unfamiliar work. Without her remaining Slayer strength, she would have never been able to hold herself up for even a moment. She stretched her back, lengthening it, rising up toward the remaining light. It faded quickly, caught in the thick trees lining the river, and she felt her energy slip.

She pressed down hard, lifted her body up, over, and out. She felt the wind rush against her, chilling her exposed skin, and for an instant, she remembered the thrill of the battle, of launching herself into the air to meet the next foe, and the next, and the next, in an unending line. Her hair lifted, tossed against her arm by the breeze clinging to her body.

Buffy laughed, laughed as the shadows around the trees swallowed the last of the sunlight, laughed as the water swallowed her legs, laughed as her mouth opened and she swallowed the river, the muddy bile that flowed down the country, splitting it in two. Death swallowed her life, and she slipped into its arms, comforted by the familiar loss of sensation.

At last, Death claimed its Slayer; reunited the pieces it had held, waiting each time to fulfill the whole from the parts left behind in each reincarnation. Buffy’s body flashed white, visible just once before it sank beneath the surface of the water, lost to the depths.

Somewhere arms encircled Buffy, pulling her away from the darkness. Hands stroked her back, her hair. Lips pressed to her forehead, her cheeks. And a voice greeted her, invoking shining eyes and long dark hair.

“Welcome home, Sis.”


End file.
